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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24776179">Vena Amoris</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/trr_rr/pseuds/trr_rr'>trr_rr</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rhett &amp; Link</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood and Violence, Dismemberment, Heavy Drinking, M/M, Post-Divorce, Rabbit Lightning - Freeform, Repression, Second Sight - Freeform, Sexual Dysfunction</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:29:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,624</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24776179</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/trr_rr/pseuds/trr_rr</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Intuition and gut feeling are the two antenna of the musical artist. And of the lover.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Vena Amoris</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I started this a long time ago. Let me know if you know what the hell I'm talking about.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <span>“This ain't gonna fly much longer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Redd's hand and his fingers on Lohn's shoulder were a barrier. Lohn's body was kept in place up against the brick wall at the back of the club. Redd's two-year-nullified wedding ring glinted in the faint yellow street light aura of the parking lot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You might think you can keep doing this to me, if I've told you once I've told you ten times, Lohn Lightning: Don't you touch me like that.” Redd's stiff finger pointed in Lohn's face to drive the message deep into his heart. To deject him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lohn readjusted his dark brimmed hat, his squint on the finger that accused him. He thought Redd would shove him and walk off into the lonesome night, the hand on his shoulder remained heavy and whiskey drunk. It gripped his shirt, unclenched and gripped again. Redd wobbled into his space and away and back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Redd, ah, I had a lot to drink.” Lohn shifted his feet and cleared his throat with his hand against his mouth, pinned in place. “Ah'm sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That all you got t'say? Y'know that touchy stuff won't pass around here, don't you? You know, you know that if fellas see you acting that way, they'll get ideas on you. Lohn, it ain't safe. I jus' care about you is all. You're my, my brother an', an' we had a lot to drink. Dang we mussa' drank our whole pay for the night. Come on, let's sleep.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Redd threw his cigarette away from his fingers into the dark. Lohn watched the hot end quietly explode as it sparked upon impact with the curb.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Redd was drunk. Lohn was drunk. Sleeping in the car was much easier when they were both drunk. Lohn spread himself out in the back seats, Redd had the driver side as horizontal as it would allow. Their second hand amp and Redd's guitar were stacked in the trunk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At night, a hot wind blew. Even with the windows cracked, Redd could feel the dust burn against the back of his neck. When his long hair parted at his nape against his leather upholstered vehicular bed, it stuck unpleasant to the seat. He would rake through the matted damp with his fingers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next touches were earlier in the night, perhaps a few months later. Lohn would remember the sound of sharp gravel being plucked from high on his cheek with a set of tweezers. The solid “plink” they made in the car's ashtray.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Redd had tolerated a hand on his lower back after their set at the club. He had let the tipsy blue doe eyes glide off him all night. Lohn had gotten too close when Redd stepped outside for a cigarette and earned himself a black eye and a face full of sharp North Carolinian parking lot gravel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lohn gave as good as he got, always. He clawed up Redd's body and hauled his friend around to tackle him and continue their scrap in a good old fashioned cloud of dust and fists and clenched fingers and elbows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No need to use the eyes in a fight. Fingers map the body without seeing, a tryst of the blind and desperate. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their bodies clattered together. Neither of them were mean types. They were lovers, not fighters but between the two of them they could do some damage when the weather was hot for a while too long.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You needin' help wi' that?” Redd asked through a rag held to his swollen lip. His orange glasses tinted the emotion in his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nah', I got it.” Lohn was still sore. He used the vanity mirror in the passenger side sun visor. He pinched the tweezers between his bruised fingers and struggled with the angle. It would not have been so tricky if his hands would stop their shake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Here.” Redd was soft. “Lemme take a look-see.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Redd took Lohn's face in his hands. His wedding ring was cool and unpleasant against Lohn's skin. Redd squinted through his shades.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm, looks to be shallow enough.” Lohn gave up the tweezers as soon as Redd's fingers touched his own. “Jus' breathe nice and slow for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lohn watched Redd undo the damage he had caused in the narrow mirror. The tug of deep grit plucked from Lohn's face satisfied them both.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There are always pretty women in bars waiting for attention. Not having a hotel room or trailer to fuck in wore Redd down more than the unresolved pain of the failed marriage that floated around his fingers and the crown of his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lohn being physically bundled into the back of their car, parked off the lot on the side of a long country road was perhaps an inevitability. Redd's hands did not have to work hard to get him in there. Lohn was shoved and dragged from the bar to their shared four wheel accommodation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were both full of drink, of course. Something was being washed over and when they got into the back seat their awkward discomfort manifested as clumsy elbows in the gut and a seatbelt buckle that dug into the thigh. Watching a foreign yet familiar male hand work to unbutton his pants for the first time unsettled Redd more than he expected it would.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The feel of stubble along his thigh and big rough hands and fingers on his flaccid cock stubbed out his arousal. It would be easy if he had never loved him. It would mean less.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was nervous embarrassment that cooled them off, unquenched and unhappy. They granted that whiskey dick just happened sometimes. Lohn did not have the same problem but he pushed Redd's big body off himself so they could sit side by side, so he could sulk in his own unheard arousal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Redd spun his wedding ring. Lohn watched Redd spin his wedding ring.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their next scrap was their worst fight. The uncrowned physicality between them was mutual and served to fuel their appetite for real blood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lohn hardly skimmed his fingers over Redd's chest, ruddier than North Carolina earth and there was no warning. The elbow to the face was low even for them and the crack against this eye socket had him thinking that something in his skull had really broken this time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A moment of shock had Redd frozen in the evening heat, fear for the severity of the damage he had inflicted. Lohn took advantage of that fear to tackle him out the door and spear him full force onto the unforgiving curb.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They rolled and bucked and yelled and their reddened tempers turned animalistic. Teeth and nails dug in and clothes were torn. A few people had been watching inside the club but they had scattered when two heavy bodies collided with the ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Men resolve physical fights on their own. No man would put himself between two strangers unless he had something to lose.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so they were alone in their fight. Their malignant lust would be torn out. It had gone too long unchecked and Lohn had no choice but to tear the unhappy instinct from them both. Redd was big but Lohn was spry. It did not take much effort for Lohn to stretch and twist his legs until Redd's arm was in a bind between his thighs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he held Redd's left hand before his face, stretched the arm with resolve and took his finger between primal sharp teeth. With clairvoyance he wrenched a dog-like cry from Redd as he bit down and a scream as he gnawed and the copper taste bloomed inside his mouth. Lohn crunched blood between his teeth and red saliva bubbled over his lips. It coated his tongue and salty globs of it ran down the back of his throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Redd's right hand pushed at his face, stabbed at the eyes and yanked at his hair hysterical. Every organ in his body objected. He convulsed and jerked spasmodically on the floor beneath Lohn's body, frightened in tears. Lohn would not let go. He felt the skin give and the meat raw and the ring was gold on his tongue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The puddle was large and it clinked across the ground when Lohn spat up his mouthful. An inanimate mutilated finger, a wedding band and a lot of blood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wrapped up in duct tape, Redd squeezed his swollen hand as he was driven to hospital by one of the bar staff. He took the finger with him in a pitcher full of ice. The doctor refused to sew it back on. The digit was not viable as the meat was too gnawed and the vital parts destroyed. The dirt and gravel and direct contact with ice had rendered it useless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The lovers stayed clear of each other for the night. What remained of Redd's ring finger, a stump, was sewn up and doctors advised him not to drink with a wry smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Next morning Lohn drove their car to a local diner and he walked in with a pair of Redd's yellowed glasses to best hide his bruised blackened eyes. He slipped with a sigh into the red plastic booth across from his partner </span>
  <span>“Ah sure 'am sorry about your finger, brother. Did they sew it back together?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Redd took a gulp of his coffee and his bandaged hand remained hidden beneath the table on his lap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you lose any feelin's in it?” Lohn urged, guilt running all through him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did lose some feeling in it, yeah, considerin' it's in the furnace back at the hospital.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lohn inhaled his coffee and choked on it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Redd laughed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They sat in the quiet diner with the radio crackle. They watched people pass by outside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The ring?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Gone.”</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p>
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